Armadillo Sports
Monday’s 6-pack
NFL teams who are furthest under the salary cap:
$30,016,170— Carolina
$22,042,564— Indianapolis
$22,003,364— Houston
$21,356,303— Cleveland
$21,249,689— New Orleans
$20,015,450— Detroit
Quote of the Day
“Catchers like to call pitches they can’t hit.”
Lou Brock
Monday’s quiz
Who was the basketball coach at Kansas before Bill Self?
Sunday’s quiz
Chicago Bulls have had a player score 50+ points in a game 36 times; Michael Jordan had 30 of those 36 games.
Jimmy Butler is the only other player with more than one (2).
Friday’s quiz
Shannon Sharpe caught the longest TD pass in NFL postseason history, 96 yards in 2020.
***************************
Monday’s Den: Wrapping up a sports weekend…….
13) Why I care more about my fantasy baseball team than the A’s:
There are 11 PLAYERS in the major leagues who are making more $$$ this year than the A’s ENTIRE TEAM!!!
You think I’m kidding?
Max Scherzer: $43.3M
Mike Trout: $37.1M
Anthony Rendon: $36.5M
Gerrit Cole: $36M
Jacob deGrom: $36M
Trevor Bauer: $35.3M
Carlos Correa: $35.1M
Stephen Strasburg: $35M
Nolan Arenado: $35M
Francisco Lindor: $34.1M
Corey Seager: $33M
all the Oakland A’s: $32.5M
By the way, A’s traded ace pitcher Sean Manaea to San Diego Sunday, for two minor leaguers, a pitcher and a middle infielder who is supposedly a good hitting prospect. Thrilling.
If you’re not going to try to win, sell the team. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, some really rich guy who likes baseball (or making $$$) would buy it. This is ridiculous.
12) April figures to be an interesting month………
— Opening Day of baseball season
— NFL schedule comes out
— NFL Draft
— NBA playoffs
— NHL playoffs
— USFL starts in two weeks
— Masters is next week
11) This season when there are replay reviews, the umpire will have a mike and will tell the crowd what is going on, which is a good move by MLB.
10) Blue Jays reliever Jordan Romero sprained his ankle this week while walking his dog; football players must go nuts when they hear stuff like that. Who gets hurt walking their dog?
9) Sunday afternoon, Mets led Miami 8-4 in top of 9th, Marlins’ hitter has a full count, takes ball four, only he doesn’t know it. He stands there; the ump takes his mask off and tells the guy he can go to first base.
These stadiums have large scoreboards in the outfield, with the count displayed on them. Oy.
8) White Sox P Lance Lynn hurt his knee, is out at least four weeks.
7) Quote of the Day, part 2:
“Part of me was excited to coach Blaine Gabbert as the quarterback and prove to everybody, ‘Kiss my ass. He’s good.’ You know?”
Bruce Arians, who said he wouldn’t have retired had Tom Brady not come back to play
6) Tomas Satoransky plays for the Washington Wizards, his third team this season; he is scoring 3.3 ppg in 16 minutes/game. A role player who has lasted six years in the NBA.
Wednesday night against Orlando, Satoransky played 27:00, didn’t score a point, going 0-2 from the floor, but he had a hell of a game, grabbing 10 rebounds, passing out 13 assists, as Wizards whacked Orlando, 127-110. Not often a guy has a double/double, but no points.
You don’t have to score a lot to be a valuable player.
5) Watching Golden State play at home the other night, there are 12 seats between the Warriors’ bench and the scorers’ table, another 12 seats between the scorers’ table and the visitors’ bench.
Wonder what those 24 seats sell for, with the two coaches standing right in front of them? Has to be $2,500 or so a ticket. It is fairly amazing that there has never been an incident of some kind in those seats, and a lot of arenas are set up that way.
4) New England Patriots traded a 3rd-round draft pick to Miami for WR Davante Parker and a 5th-round pick. Interesting trade between division rivals; Patriots have been dreadful drafting receivers, so they traded for a WR they know is a good one.
3) Last two years, Tampa Bay is +18 in turnovers; the two years before that, they were minus-31. I’m told that quarterback is an important position.
New England was +10 in turnovers the last two years; they were +31 the two years before that, so in Tom Brady’s last four years in the NFL, his team is +49 in turnovers. In 65 games.
2) Butler hired Thad Matta as its new coach; Matta went 24-8 coaching Butler in 2000-01, then bolted to Xavier, and later to Ohio State. The man he replaced at Butler is Barry Collier, who is now the AD at Butler.
1) Kansas-Villanova game Saturday was 58 possessions, Jayhawks’ slowest-paced game in six years. Kansas still scored 1.4 points/possession, despite scoring zero points in transition.